SF Cocktail Week Top Five, #3: Bar School

The #3 event for Cocktail Week is actually a mulitude of events. It's called Bar School, and the classes of Bar School take place Thursday, May 14 at various locations and times around town. Basically, the city's top cocktail, spirits and bartending experts will be sharing their knowledge with the public. The lineup is incredible, if I do say so myself, especially because I will be teaching one of the classes with Cantina owner Duggan McDonnell. Our class, entitled "Cane, Grape & Cactus: True Lies About Latin American Spirits & Cocktails" is at Cantina from 6:30–8. We'll be talking about agave-based spirits and the drinks of Mexico, as well as the cane spirits of Brazil and the Pisco cultures of Peru and Chile.

The only disappointment for me is that because I'm teaching that class, I won't be able to go to some of the other stellar offerings, such Jon Santer (formerly of Bourbon & Branch and Beretta, now of Heaven's Dog) on gin; Lance Winters of Hangar One teaching Distilling 101; Carlos Yturria of Rye on the Barbary Coast tradition of cocktails; and the always-great Eric Adkins of Heaven's Dog escorting classic cocktail romanticists through Charles Baker's wondrous 1939 travel/cocktail book, Gentleman's Companion: Being an Exotic Drinking Book, or Around the World With Jigger, Beaker and Flask.